Content marketing is one of the most efficient marketing strategies today. It works exceptionally well in both B2B and B2C environments. The main reason is that content can generate a lot of exposure, visibility and brand awareness in a relatively short time period.
The way content does this is by providing value to consumers. That being said, the online market has become very competitive in the last few years. Businesses are, therefore, on a constant lookout for means that will give them a much-needed advantage.
If your product can provide them with such an advantage or at least help your clients perform their daily tasks more seamlessly, you have to ensure that they’re aware of your product. Content marketing is the best way to do so.
Consequently, business owners will conduct their own research. They want to familiarize themselves with various offers before they make a decision.
Your content will be able to provide them with all the information they need and even convince them that your product is better than the rest. With that in mind, here are a few actionable B2B content marketing steps you can start doing today.
1. Research your audience
Research is one of the most important factors for any content marketing strategy. You have to know what type of content to produce and how to best present it to your target audience. Moreover, you must know who your target audience is to begin with.
That said, B2B research differs from B2C. For example, you’re not looking for a specific consumer group but instead looking for companies that might use your products or services.
Moreover, you’re not interested in consumer demographics or incomes but instead interested in their pain points and the challenges they face so that you can provide them with a solution. The best approach is to tailor content for every step of your potential client’s buying journey. Here’s an example.
- Awareness stage – Clients will begin researching solutions to their problems. Well-placed content that’s informative and educational, such as white papers and industry reports, will help you improve visibility and place your content wherever potential clients may conduct their search.
- Considerations stage – Potential clients will weigh their options and look for the best solution to their problem. Take this opportunity to keep them engaged and provide them with useful content, such as webinars, guides, demos etc.
- Conversion stage – Potential clients may be ready to make a purchase. Seal the deal by providing them with actionable content, such as ROI estimates, testimonials and case studies.
2. Create stunning landing pages
When your content marketing strategy is in motion, you can expect an increase in website traffic from various sources where your content is published. What that means is that potential clients will flock to your website to either get more informed or make their own comparisons.
It’s vital that you keep them on your pages and prevent visitors from bouncing off. That’s why you need stunning landing pages that will hold consumer interest.
Such landing pages usually consist of great visuals, well-designed CTA, the right kind of immolation and so on. If you cannot create such landing pages on your own, consider hiring someone who can.
A good example is finding someone local. Therefore, if you operate in New York, you might consider a web design agency from NY. Working with professionals means that you’ll get what you need and on time so that you don’t miss out on any opportunities generated by your content marketing efforts.
3. Conduct a competitive analysis
Understanding how your competitors leverage content to their advantage and how they use content marketing to drive interest for their products and services can help you out immensely.
The fact of the matter is that you want your content marketing to be more effective than your competitors’ strategies.
That’s why a content marketing competitive analysis is a must. The key is not to copy what your competitors are doing but instead find content gaps that will give you an advantage.
By analyzing your competitor’s content strategy in a more structured way, you’re able to identify their strengths and weaknesses. This will allow you to identify your own competitive advantages, as well. Here are a few things you should do.
- Create a list of your competitors.
- Analyze their business positioning.
- Analyze their website content and its quality.
- Identify their main keywords.
- Consider which channels they’re most active on.
- Identify their top-performing content and their weak spots.
- Use your analysis to improve your own content strategy.
4. Create a blog
Having a blog is a great way to boost your content marketing efforts. As mentioned before, a lot of business owners will conduct their own research before they make a decision, which means they’ll look for more content on the topic they’re interested in.
A blog is an ideal place to provide potential clients will more information and more content. After all, around 70% of B2B consumers prefer to go directly to a vendor’s website for more content.
This is also a great opportunity to increase brand and product or service awareness, generate more qualified leads and improve conversion rates. However, your blog needs to be well-designed and engaging so that potential clients will actually stay to consume your content.
Designing a blog is like designing a website; if you don’t know how to do it properly, you can find someone else to do it for you, like a New York web design company, for example. The key is to ensure that your blog complements your website and vice versa. Quality content won’t help you much if your audience keeps bouncing off due to poor quality design or lack of functionality.
5. Decide which content types will suit your audience most
When it comes to content marketing, companies usually get creative and innovative so that they can keep their content fresh and ensure that their audience is engaged.
Although B2B consumers aren’t as nearly as demanding as regular B2C consumers, they still have needs and expectations you should cater to. Therefore, consider which content types will suit your audience best and for which purposes.
For example, during the consideration stage of a buyer’s journey, it’s recommended to provide potential clients with demos to show how your product works and what it does. In that case, video format would be much more preferable than text or images.
That said, consider other formats you can use to create new content or repurpose the old one. Here are a few examples.
- Videos.
- Infographics.
- Webinars.
- Podcasts.
Different content types may perform better in given situations and build more engagement among potential clients that will help you lead them down your sales funnel.
Content marketing is the best way to get the necessary brand awareness, visibility and exposure you need. However, creating an effective content marketing strategy requires careful planning.
You must know your audience well and take the necessary actionable steps that will ensure that your content is working in your favor the way it’s supposed to.
Author bio:
Tomas is a digital marketing specialist and a freelance blogger. His work is focusing on new web tech trends and digital voice distribution across different channels.
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